[zeissiez]

 
Yeah, my search is definitely over for now, this is such a great amplifier. the sound is so musical, easy to listen to. I sold off my HD800's a few months back because they sounded very bright on my EF-6, now I kinda wish I still had them here to test with the V281, can imagine it being a great pairing.

V281 + HD800 + Balanced cable + Sonarworks Reference 3 = incredible sound.


Seriously. Completely transforms the HD800 into an absolute beast. Nothing can come close for that money (especially if you get the HD800 second hand). 

How does SR3 work? What are the available host applications?

 

[sanjeewasam]

V281 + HD800 + Balanced cable + Sonarworks Reference 3 = incredible sound.


Seriously. Completely transforms the HD800 into an absolute beast. Nothing can come close for that money (especially if you get the HD800 second hand). 

Could u please explain how u use Sonarworks Reference 3. I did a trial with foorbar and jriver on win10 laptop and used Sonarworks Reference 3 standard hd800 calibration and it was not impressive at all. It just eq the thing which i could do with other add ons availble. I did not play with it much.

 

[Yoga]

How does SR3 work? What are the available host applications?

 

Could u please explain how u use Sonarworks Reference 3. I did a trial with foorbar and jriver on win10 laptop and used Sonarworks Reference 3 standard hd800 calibration and it was not impressive at all. It just eq the thing which i could do with other add ons availble. I did not play with it much.

 
In the pro audio world, flat/neutral sound is the holy grail for production, mixing and mastering (especially the latter). Hence SW was born. It was initially designed to calibrate studio monitors within your own room (each room having individual sound characteristics / reflections etc). The SW then took multiple versions of the same headphone and took specific measurements of their frequency curves, giving them a very good average reading for each headphone. This allowed them to produce a curve that, when applied to the stock HD800 sound, would flatten it so the desired reference level.

The HD800 in particular is especially responsive to EQ, it scales like no other headphone. Quite remarkable. It's known for being bass light with a 6kHz treble peak, when you run it through SWR3 that character is completely changed to one that is very, very accurate. The bass it can produce is mind blowing! You still retain the massive soundstage and accurate tonality.

The stock HD800 is not an accurate sounding headphone. You may be used to it, but that's as far as it goes. When you apply SWR3, it will at first sound a but dull in comparison as you've normalised those high frequencies. Stick with it for a few hours (days preferably) and then pop back to stock to see how bright it really is.

For the record, I have a high end studio monitor setup in an acoustically treated room. The balanced SWR3 V281 HD800 combo is very close. Crazy good.

Some tips: Under the Advanced tab, make sure you're in Linear phase more. More accurate. Also make sure 'Avoid Clipping' is enabled. You'll have to turn your volume up to compensate, but it stops the audio from being clipped (bad). Think of your stock HD800 frequency as a full glass of water. When you start to remove/add additional frequency via EQ, you're essentially tipping out or adding more water. If you add so much as to make it overflow (clip) you lose data/quality.

If you're using Mac, the Audirvana music app is the best choice, and you can add plugins via the settings. If you're on Sierra OSX, you'll need to disable Direct Mode in Audirvana for the best sound quality (bug in that version of OSX). You can also use Audio Hijack, more complicated, but let's you run SWR3 across your whole system, or specific apps (such as Safari, Spotify, Tidal, VLC, PLEX etc). 
 
The sound 'flows' from left to right. You place stuff in specific orders and can toggle inputs on/off easily. The Ghz plugins you see between SWR3 and the DAC output are also fantastic, they let you emulate a speaker sound via headphones. Another great tweak to make the sound that much better.


Foobar lets you use plugins in Windows, if I'm not mistaken.

If you have the V281 nd the HD800, get yourself a nice balanced cable too. Makes a big difference! 
 
The official thread is here:
 
Sonarworks Headphone Calibration software

 

[phonomat]

​hey 13713, I listen to mostly old hip-hop music, rnb / funk and I also enjoy classical. yesterday I was listening to The Weeknd, the new album Starboy and the album Beauty Behind The Madness, was also listening to the new SOHN album, Rennen. Starboy is a very well recorded album IMO, specifically the songs "Secrets" and "I Feel It Coming". if you have any albums you can recommend me, please do. gonna be having some long listening sessions over the next few days.

Nice, I just recommended that on the SE-Master1 thread. Love the production, so spacious and so much going on.
And yeah, the V281 is great.

 

[sanjeewasam]

   
 
In the pro audio world, flat/neutral sound is the holy grail for production, mixing and mastering (especially the latter). Hence SW was born. It was initially designed to calibrate studio monitors within your own room (each room having individual sound characteristics / reflections etc). The SW then took multiple versions of the same headphone and took specific measurements of their frequency curves, giving them a very good average reading for each headphone. This allowed them to produce a curve that, when applied to the stock HD800 sound, would flatten it so the desired reference level.

The HD800 is particular is especially responsive to EQ, it scales like no other headphone. Quite remarkable. It's known for being bass light with a 6kHz treble peak, when you run it through SWR3 that character is completely changed to one that is very, very accurate. The bass it can produce is mind blowing! You still retain the massive soundstage and accurate tonality.

The stock HD800 is not an accurate sounding headphone. You may be used to it, but that's as far as it goes. When you apply SWR3, it will at first sound a but dull in comparison as you've normalised those high frequencies. Stick with it for a few hours (days preferably) and then pop back to stock to see how bright it really is.

For the record, I have a high end studio monitor setup in an acoustically treated room. The balanced SWR3 V281 HD800 combo is very close. Crazy good.

Some tips: Under the Advanced tab, make sure you're in Linear phase more. More accurate. Also make sure 'Avoid Clipping' is enabled. You'll have to turn your volume up to compensate, but it stops the audio from being clipped (bad). Think of your stock HD800 frequency as a full glass of water. When you start to remove/add additional frequency via EQ, you're essentially tipping out of adding more water. If you add so much as to make it overflow (clip) you lose data/quality.

If you're using Mac, the Audirvana music app is the best choice, and you can add plugins via the settings. If you're on Sierra OSX, you'll need to disable Direct Mode in Audirvana for the best sound quality (bug in that version of OSX). You can also use Audio Hijack, more complicated, but let's you run SWR3 across your whole system, or specific apps (such as Safari, Spotify, Tidal, VLC, PLEX etc). 
 
The sound 'flows' from left to right. You place stuff in specific orders and can toggle inputs on/off easily. The Ghz plugins you see between SWR3 and the DAC output are also fantastic, they let you emulate a speaker sound via headphones. Another great tweak to make the sound that much better.


Foobar lets you use plugins in Windows, if I'm not mistaken.

If you have the V281 nd the HD800, get yourself a nice balanced cable too. Makes a big difference! 
 
The official thread is here:
 
Sonarworks Headphone Calibration software

Thanks a lot for this info
 
My set up is as follows. Yes I do have balanced cable
 
a) power conditioner (BADA LB 3300)
b) shielding power cables for V281/V850 (AU IEC Plug red copper adio OFC)
c) V850->V281 via balanced  shielded cables (after market but oked by Fried Reim).
d) Auralic Aries Mini Streamer With Jay's Audio LPS
e) shielded 75ohms coax cable (oked by Fried Reim)
f) Source- Sinology NAS 213j Flac collection and Tidal streaming via Aries mini connected wifi mode to my router
g) HD800 ( balanced cable -  FURUKAWA PCOCC cable with black color Teflon sleeving, Swiss made Neutrik XLR stereo plug and 24k gold-plated connector pins).
 
Last time when I tried I noted that HD800 become more neutral across the spectrum with SWR3 and had to increase the volume quite a bit. I do not have a mac but can run Android (on a tab) or Linux. So I will try is again on windows with foorbar
 
What I did not like is SWR3 killed the dynamics, sound stage of HD800 and was much more boring. With limited listening as I said I thought it  made HD800 something else but did not like it at all. My set up is mainly geared to cater to HD800 which I think is the best and that is why I selected Vio 850 which is a darker, laid back dac and V281.
 
Thanks again. I will give it a go and revert back

 

[Yoga]

 
Thanks a lot for this info
 
My set up is as follows. Yes I do have balanced cable
 
a) power conditioner (BADA LB 3300)
b) shielding power cables for V281/V850 (AU IEC Plug red copper adio OFC)
c) V850->V281 via balanced  shielded cables (after market but oked by Fried Reim).
d) Auralic Aries Mini Streamer With Jay's Audio LPS
e) shielded 75ohms coax cable (oked by Fried Reim)
f) Source- Sinology NAS 213j Flac collection and Tidal streaming via Aries mini connected wifi mode to my router
g) HD800 ( balanced cable -  FURUKAWA PCOCC cable with black color Teflon sleeving, Swiss made Neutrik XLR stereo plug and 24k gold-plated connector pins).
 
Last time when I tried I noted that HD800 become more neutral across the spectrum with SWR3 and had to increase the volume quite a bit. I do not have a mac but can run Android (on a tab) or Linux. So I will try is again on windows with foorbar
 
What I did not like is SWR3 killed the dynamics, sound stage of HD800 and was much more boring. With limited listening as I said I thought it  made HD800 something else but did not like it at all. My set up is mainly geared to cater to HD800 which I think is the best and that is why I selected Vio 850 which is a darker, laid back dac and V281.
 
Thanks again. I will give it a go and revert back

Solid setup you have there. Certainly not dark enough to combat the HD800 treble though, you'd need *really* warm tubes for that with a high treble rolloff.

Don't mistake brighter treble for a bigger soundstage. Listen purely for positioning, rather than volume. Anything that sounds louder sounds better.

Yes you will have to compensate volume.

If you're a fan of the stock HD800 sound that's all good. Just don't think it's accurate or representative of what the music should sound like. Have fun with the wet/dry knob, you can blend stock/SWR3 curve to your exact desire. Handy!

 

[13713]

Alright... As a diehard of the HD800 sound I will try SW.

Mind you almost all of my music is on vinyl I will try this out.

 

[Yoga]

Alright... As a diehard of the HD800 sound I will try SW.

Mind you almost all of my music is on vinyl I will try this out.

Interested to hear your thoughts! Do spend some time with it enabled to adjust your ears.

 

[Trance_Gott]

I want to buy Shure SE846 Inears for my V281. Does anybody knows if the background is dead silent even balanced?

 

[Yoga]

I want to buy Shure SE846 Inears for my V281. Does anybody knows if the background is dead silent even balanced?

@project86 's review included sensitive IEMs. Completely black background if I recall correctly.

 

[project86]

 
@project86 's review included sensitive IEMs. Completely black background if I recall correctly.

 
 
It's pretty quite or even silent with a lot of IEMs but I have found a few that show mild hiss. Not sure if that was the case at the time of my review, so I may  have claimed complete silence back then. It's generally listenable though, even when there is a bit of hiss.
 
For contrast, I've owned lots of portable amps which were presumably intended for use with IEMs, but had worse hiss than the big V281.

 

[Trance_Gott]

Have you tested SE846? Which IEs are silent with V281?

 

[Fegefeuer]

   
 
It's pretty quite or even silent with a lot of IEMs but I have found a few that show mild hiss. Not sure if that was the case at the time of my review, so I may  have claimed complete silence back then. It's generally listenable though, even when there is a bit of hiss.
 
For contrast, I've owned lots of portable amps which were presumably intended for use with IEMs, but had worse hiss than the big V281.

 
Did you try setting the pre-gain to -12db?

 

[ab_ba]

Edit: don't do what I did! I've heard from enough people that I probably fooled myself into hearing what I wanted to hear, and also the point was made in the long run this could possibly even do some damage to the V281. I'm leaving this post intact (lightly edited) for the sake of the record.

Problem: The V281 sounds way better through the balanced out. But, I can't afford to buy balanced cables for all my headphones.
 
Solution: An adapter from 4-pin XLR to a 1/4" headphone plug. I commissioned mine from an ebay vendor of cables..
 
To me, this gives most of the benefits of the balanced out without needing to buy new cables for all of your headphones. It sounds clearly better than the single-ended output, and just a little less good than a dedicated balanced cable. Pretty sweet.

 

 

[mulder01]

  *snip*

 
Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but is that not the same as plugging it into a 1/4inch socket on the front of the amp?